This invention relates in general to digital network communication and more specifically to control and management of traffic over a network within a localized area.
Today many homes are provided with relatively high-speed broadband Internet access. Typically, several types of services are provided to residents of a home by devices located within the home. These devices and services make use of a single broadband Internet connection that is shared by use of a home network. Some types of activities and services that are provided to a home include web page viewing, file transfers, voice communication (e.g., voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)), video on demand (VoD) or near video on demand (nVoD) including streaming audio and video, online gaming, etc. These are loosely classified as three types of data—voice, video and integrated data (VVID)—with online gaming sometimes discussed as a fourth type.
Some services, such as VoIP require a guaranteed amount of bandwidth or the service's performance may become unacceptable. For example, if a VoIP phone device can not transmit or receive its data fast enough a person in a phone conversation can experience interruptions, degradation of sound quality, or other unacceptable effects. On the other hand, a service such as downloading a file in a background, or batch, mode can often tolerate a slowdown or short suspension of the service since a human user is not paying immediate attention to the operation of the service.
Attempts to manage and control shared bandwidth among multiple services so that a particular service can have a guaranteed, necessary or predictable amount of resources is referred to as quality of service (QoS). QoS mechanisms attempt to provide shared bandwidth based on classification or type of traffic. Some specifications that define mechanisms, interfaces, protocols and other characteristics are described for example in IEEE 802.1q (VLAN) and IEEE 802.1D Annex H.2 (User Priorities and Traffic Classes).